Hi!
I feel like I’m writing to you from very far away even though we are all far or close to each other at any given moment, depending.
For the last 2 weeks I’ve been in Silver City, New Mexico as a resident at my friend Kyle Durrie’s space Power and Light Press. I met Kyle when she was traveling around in her mobile bread truck letterpress studio (I found an old article about it here). She rolled into Austin in this boxy silver truck full of type, adventures, and art and I was like I’ll have what she’s having. Here we are, almost 15 years later. (I’m pretty sure a lot of people feel this way about Kyle btw and Kyle if you are reading this, you’re a legend)
I made a deal with myself. This year I would be wholly devotional to my stuff, you know? The voice inside that has insisted that I always need to have a job on the side, something to help me in my poverty and I pursue the whimsical worlds in my mind (with my jazz degree! With my colored pencils! With my banjo, saw, and ethereal vocal troupe!) has died or moved somewhere else. Its replacement is advice that I’ve been getting over and over from the quirkiest freaks in my life so it’s probably true.
The thing is, you don’t have to have a job, you just have to have money and not a lot of it, just enough.
And
In a time of every growing darkness and ever blossoming revolution to be devotional about listening and understanding is frontline work.
So here I am, two weeks into a month here. I’m starting to get used to things. We are staying on the tiny downtown strip of the town and it’s noisy with banging trashcans, squealy truck brakes, and sometimes zany yelling. The light and the wind in the high desert have a completely different frequency in every way. Summer without AC has a daily dance with opening and closing various windows and turning fans around. People in the coffee shop talk about adobe, conspiracy theories, dog drama, and aging. I am hungry all the time, mostly eating bread and butter, nectarines, and rice with tofu and soy sauce.
The chatter and guilt and to do lists and FOMO from my life in Austin is quieter every day, replaced by an emerging silence I am hoping will nourish ideas to come.
Between hiking, staring at the sky, and reading The Three Body Problem (which I have just started the second book no spoilers but tell me have you read it), I was hoping that some music or art or something would happen and so far it has manifested in making 3 pairs of pants out of 70’s sheets and tablecloths which are truly abundant at the local thrift shop. The mediation of measuring and cutting, sewing the long seams, sometimes making mistakes and pulling out the thread and sewing again has been medicine and then at the end of the process, a completely functional garment emerges!
I am playing a show here later in the month if you happen to be in SW New Mexico! June 29 I play a little solo set at Whiskey Creek Zocalo before a raucous night with all the San Antonio boys Garrett T. Capps and NASA Country, Sunjammer, and Buttercup.
I don’t really know where we go from here. Stay tuned!
Love,
Lindsey
Your missives make life feel just a bit better for a little while. That's all :)
Hiiiii I love reading your missives so very much, and I miss your face, and I think you have impeccable taste in pants! The first pair you’re wearing caught my eye right away! I really want to be sewing more and I am sure I’m not the only person who would eagerly pay for a pattern and tutorial on how to make these barrel-y glories! Tablecloths & soft old sheets YES!!!